Floating on a Tidal Wave
by RumpelstiltskinWantsMySanity
Summary: Jace Herondale was everything Clary had ever wanted, but couldn't quite have. That is, until, they find a workaround. The "friends with benefits" thing was always something like a fantasy to Clary, and it was perfect, because Jace was best at making fantasies come true. This would be fun. {OOC/AU/AH/Rated M}
1. The Sun Exploded

**A/N: Disclaimer, so I don't have to write one ever again: nothing is mine but the plot and OC's, which I doubt I'll even include.**

 **Apart from that, enjoy! 💛💛💛**

* * *

It was a pleasant day, not a cloud painted on the arctic-blue sky, and the sun beaming brightly. The laughter of people, the songs of birds, and the rustle of trees were resonant.

And Clary Fray was running late.

It was beautiful how time worked, really, since she woke up an hour before she was supposed to, got ready in a span of thirty minutes, had an hour to spare, and _still_ managed to leave the house horribly late. Honestly, it baffled her.

And today, today was _not_ the day to be late. She had so many things to do and deadlines and she was _so screwed._

Clary was a journalist for a magazine, had been one for quite some time—she'd probably die a journalist—and she didn't think she could love anything as strongly as she loved her job. She'd moved across the country for it, torn ties with old friends for it. She'd cried over it and laughed at it.

But shit, if her job wasn't exhausting sometimes. The day her job would be perfect, would be the day the world would implode.

Once the building where she worked came into view, its photogenic windows reflecting the dazzling city, her legs sped their pace about a million times, though she was still careful about her heels, making sure she didn't trip. She hitched her handbag higher up her shoulder, and her fingers wrapped around her ID card, needing something to do.

The building's warm welcome when she hurried through the doors, wasn't so warm; small shivers pricked her spine at the chill of the air conditioning. She didn't recognize the receptionist—though she never did recognize the receptionist, since the role seemed to be changing every few days or so—but she greeted him briefly anyway, rushing to the elevators as she did.

 _I'm going to die_ , she thought. _Ms. Trueblood's going to kill me, and I'm going to have to accept my death._

Her legs ached from walking so fast, and regret at wearing a skirt and blouse flushed through her, painfully so. Going into incognito mode would've been so much easier: leggings, a sweatshirt, flats instead of heels, and her rebellious hair jailed in a bun—and it would all be so, _so_ comfortable, like the feeling of being home after weeks or months or years. But she couldn't do that, because she'd paid all that money on expensive clothes for what? So they could look cool and quirky hanging limply in her closet?

A ding told her many things. One, that the elevator had made its arrival. Two, that doom was getting closer and closer. And three, that she was alone in the elevator, and nearly no-one was to be seen in the reception except for clients and lost tourists.

Less than a minute later, she was on her floor, the air around her was infected with the smell of old paper and cologne.

Her watch claimed it was 9:57 in the morning—she was an hour late.

There was nothing more wonderful.

Her brain, being the absolutely fucking brilliant thing it was, convinced her that an hour was merely a speck in the great expanse of time. It didn't matter if she really looked at it.

Nevertheless, she zipped past a section of cubicles, a few of the employees nodding at her. Some of out pity, others out of respect.

"Dear god, darling, slow down," chastised a smooth voice behind her quietly, amusement sprucing up the tone of it. "If I used a speedometer on you right now, it would break."

Clary smiled, slowing her pace so that Magnus could catch up with her. "Why would you own a speedometer? That's literally the last thing anybody would have." She glanced at him sidelong, her smile dwindling. Magnus specialized in all things fashion, so naturally, he was a fashion editor.

"Oh, I don't know, I'm just exotic like that. And plus, I'm not just _anybody_ ," the irony and exaggeration running under his voice made her mood a little less dark. "I'm sure people would _kill_ to be like me—"

She rolled her eyes, a grin twisting her mouth. "Maybe in an alternate universe, where leaves are fucking purple and the sky's green." Her words were but a murmur, the light-hearted manner of them evident. Truly, she'd never have the courage to be like Magnus. You couldn't use just a word to describe him; he was a little bit of everything, and that was why she admired him.

His dark green eyes, unlike any she'd seen, cut to hers, narrowed in annoyance. " _Therefore_ ," he went on, ignoring her. "If _I_ owned a speedometer, the whole world would want one, too. I'm a good marketing strategy."

"You're _also_ wrong," she chastised. "Whomst the fuck would want a speedometer? They'd need it for what—measuring the speed of their, I don't know, _mom_ 's car as it drives away? And why—you might ask—is this person's _mother_ , of all people, driving away?"

She paused, for dramatic effect of course, then continued on, "It's because the number of speedometers this person owns is alarming, and has demolished their microscopic social life. It's all he talks about; his two friends can't stand it—and one of those friends is his unfortunate mother." She took a breath. "So, Magnus, you've just ruined a someone's happiness." Subtly she glanced around, noticing that they were scarily close to Ms. Trueblood's office. Her heart was screaming in her chest, pushing her to walk faster.

"Beautiful analysis," he said dryly. "Do you want me to _give_ you a gold medal or are you just going to take it?"

Her own office was a few steps from her now, and she stopped to ponder upon his question. "After some intense brain work," she drawled. "I think I'll just let you keep it, out of pity of course. This loss might be a little too traumatizing for you."

"Sometimes, your mind is just so tiny, you're putting the atom to shame." He sounded fed up, and it made her smirk grow.

"Aw," she cooed. "There's no need to be sour—"

"Hush, I'm losing brain cells. And I'm running behind on about nine things just by talking to you, so bye." He started walking away towards his department, adjusting the cuffs of his suit.

She opened her office door, shooting him an, "I love you, too," before stampeding to her desk and getting all her papers in order. Her bag hit the floor with a pathetic thump, but she didn't hear it.

Her desk was a mess.

It wasn't even the kind of mess where she knew everything was; papers were where they weren't supposed to be, she couldn't find the mouse of her computer for the life of her, and she needed to refill her printer with ink. Only when she found about three missing coupons and a dog bone from when she was looking after her friend's Maltese, did the thought of spending the time to clean her desk hit her in the head.

Clary didn't have green skin or deadly muscle, but she was pretty reminiscent of the _Hulk_ in this very moment, almost embarrassingly. For a pretty lengthy five minutes, all that took place was her frustratedly throwing things around and searching for the papers Ms. Trueblood had told her to submit today. She could have just printed them out again, but she had no ink—and why waste paper?

* * *

She'd found the papers she needed, and, to her delight, they weren't even ripped.

Though, the delight was blown away rather quickly by the brewing fear stirring in her stomach. Fear of facing Ms. Trueblood.

Swallowing nervously, Clary pushed open the door to her boss' office, anticipation and anxiety flaring up within her.

The size and elegance of the room always seemed to catch her off guard. But, today, what caught her the most off guard, was that Ms. Trueblood sported a wide smile and was laughing about something to a man sat before her.

Maryse Trueblood was smiling.

The last time Clary had seen Ms. Trueblood let out even a mere sound of joy, was when one of her co-workers slipped on wet tile and fractured his arm. And that was a few months ago.

So, when Clary's boss, who was reminiscent of a brick wall on a daily basis, and whose deep hatred towards Clary made the ocean look like nothing, grinned up at her, she could only assume the woman had hit her head quite hard somewhere.

"Clary!" she exclaimed, voice alive with amusement. "Well, it's about time you've showed up," her words had a warm hue about them, no threats or anything.

 _What the hell_ , Clary thought. _I'm so confused._

The redhead forced her mouth into a hesitant smile, her gaze glued to Ms. Trueblood. She looked so beautiful, and an unusually amiable air hung around her. It made Clary wonder why she didn't let herself be outwardly happy more often, why she decided to be as easy-going as a block of cement.

And before Clary could even take a breath, words were already being thrown at her by her boss, "I'm sure you've heard that one of our photo editors has been fired," she hadn't, in fact, heard about this, "It was announced this morning, actually," so _that_ was why. Oh, well. "He was quite awful, wasn't he?" Ms. Trueblood's crystal blue eyes rolled lazily. "God, I might possibly gag thinking about the horrid pictures he chose. To think he made one of our most sought-after models look like the bottom of a toilet bowl." Clary had to nod affirmatively.

Ms. Trueblood scowled dramatically, before speaking, "I digress, though. We have a replacement for him—a permanent one, thankfully. Frankly, it's an embarrassment to have to endlessly change our photo editor—"

"Maryse," a voice strolled through the room, carelessly light like leaves falling during autumn. "Give the man a break; surely he was trying his best."

' _Trying his best' my foot. And_ Maryse _? They were on a first name basis?_

The force at which Clary cringed made her muscles hurt momentarily, and she stared at this man—this miracle human, who'd not only managed to make their dear _Maryse_ express emotion, but also seemed to have complete sway over her.

Ms. Trueblood's gushing response went out of focus, morphing into background noise as Clary's gaze bumped into his. The first thing she noticed were his eyes, and they were something akin to storm clouds with sunlight splayed all over them, making them this amber color with just a touch of grey running in the back. You'd know they were trouble, these clouds, beautiful as they were, yet all you could do was stop and stare.

And the thing was, the rest of his face was just as beautiful. And undeniably sexy.

It was how his hair was this dark shade of blonde, or how she wouldn't have minded playing with his lips for hours together, that made the speed of her thoughts go into hyperdrive. How his body fit _so perfectly_ in that suit he was wearing—

Clearing her throat quietly, Clary hauled her attention to what Ms. Trueblood was droning on about and saw that the man did the same, though his gaze fluttered to where she was standing, just a few feet from the door, every so often.

"—and though hiring that sick excuse of an employee was a mistake, we do tend to learn from those." _She was still talking about that?_ "I do hope, Jace," Ms. Trueblood looked pointedly at the man—Jace, an expectant grin carved into her face"That you do not take after him. It would be quite the loss for us if you did. Very few people, may I say, have the amount of charisma you do, and, if possible, a greater amount of experience."

A scoff tumbled easily out of Clary; the woman was practically kissing this guy's ass.

The scoff bloomed into a scowl when Jace gave her a sugar-sweet smile, claiming in the most artificially modest tone she'd ever heard, "It sounds like you're just describing yourself there, Maryse. And—" Jace glanced at her, a smirk playing at his lips, and mischief seemed to crackle in those clouded eyes. Her scowl deepened. What seemed like concern colored his face, and he prodded uneasily, "Clary, are you alright?"

A mixture of confusion and surprise blended within her, causing her eyes to widen and her mind to start and stop weirdly. "I—I don't know what you're talking about—?"

"Your face looks all uptight, so I assumed you're going through some type of pain." His eyebrows knitted together. "Correct me if I've assumed wrongly, though."

Her cheeks stained an angry pink, and the grip she had on her papers tightened impossibly. Yet, when she went to spit out something rude at him, it wasn't the challenging look in Jace's eyes that made her come short; she could feel Ms. Trueblood's scrutiny bursting holes through her, _daring_ her to 'correct him if he assumed wrongly', to leave a bad impression on her.

So, instead, she lifted her mouth up into a grin that could have torn her cheeks, and said, "Uhm…No, no you haven't. I've just, uh, been down with a small cold recently. I haven't died yet, so it's, uhm, nothing big." She took a deep breath, mentally laughing at herself for how stupid she sounded. She wasn't the only who thought so, too.

Devoid of so much amusement, Ms. Trueblood tightly inquired if she needed to use the restrooms, to which she refused politely.

 _That bastard_ , Clary fumed internally.

"Speaking of the restrooms," declared Jace, shifting around in the plush seat he was in, as if uncomfortable. "If you wouldn't mind showing me where they are..."

Ms. Trueblood hummed awkwardly, the nervous chuckle flowing from her still shocking to Clary. "Ah, yes," the older woman breathed. "Clary, after Jace is done using the restrooms, why don't you show him around? As far as I'm concerned, you've nothing important happening for the morning."

She shouldn't have even thought about it, about talking back, but she did anyway, "Actually, I—" And there came her boss' voice, smothering her small one like smoke.

"I am _very_ sure you'll make your new co-worker feel welcome here, right?" If her tone could have been portrayed by an animal, it was a snake: threatening, with just a touch of cunning grace.

Nodding seemed like the safest option, so that was what Clary did. A pleased expression raked Ms. Trueblood's features, soon dissolving into regret as she glimpsed at Jace. "My deepest apologies for not being able to show you around myself. The amount of work I've got to tend to is horrifying, to say the least." Her smile was elegant, professional.

The paper in Clary's hands was long forgotten, but her nails were digging into it anyway.

She shouldn't have even shown up.

* * *

 **A/N: Jace is kind of an ass/OOC so I'm sorry about that, oof.** **This story's been on my mind for about a year and a half, and I wrote about six chapters of it in January, but I re-read them and decided they were shit and rewrote them, and here we are 😂😌**

 **I hope that there'll be enough citrus in this story to cure anyone of any vitamin C deficiencies.**

 **OH. I watched _Bohemian Rhapsody_ and fucking christ, it's a brilliant movie. Factually, it's not the best, but Rami Malek was absolutely stunning and deserves a fucking Oscar for his performance as Freddie Mercury. 10/10 would recommend 😏**

 **That's all. See you in a bit 💛💛**

 **-RWMS**


	2. The Sun Set Free

**A/N: Just a reminder that this series is *very* OOC. Apart from that, I hope you enjoy!**

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"You're such an ass," Clary seethed, unfiltered anger erupting from her. There were crazed flames behind her eyes, fed by the embarrassment and hatred swelling within her. She'd made sure the door to Ms. Trueblood's office was sealed shut, and that Jace was following her as she walked, beating the carpeted floor with her heels.

And now, she just didn't fucking care. Didn't care that she was overreacting and being vulgar and disrespectful and letting the hot-headed nature of her brain control her. Especially when this random, _very_ hot guy she'd known for zero-point-two seconds was making a fool out of her for _no reason_.

She could _feel_ the bloody bastard rolling his eyes. "You're mispronouncing 'thank you'," his tone was lathered in sarcasm and arrogance, and all it did was make the anger in her hiss and flood.

A humorless laugh trudged out of her, a discreet snarl tampering with her features. "And _what_ , exactly, should I be thanking you for? Humiliating me in front of myboss?" She was borderline yelling, and could not have been more thankful for the fact that there seemingly weren't any people around. The urge to smear dirt all over Mrs. Trueblood's name came to her easily, but, for the thousandth time, she pressed down on it. God knew who was listening. "Because if so, I'm _very sorry to disappoint._ And by the way, jackass, the woman hates me so much already, so if you're trying to get me on her bad side—I'm a long-time resident there."

For some reason, the sickeningly bright lights on the ceiling seemed _too_ bright, and the walls were too blank. Her office—which she was hurrying to, because she didn't care about the damn bathroom— was too far away, and the pace at which she was walking was too slow.

She was so _tired_ of this place.

The soft sound of footsteps behind her stopped abruptly, and tide upon gushing tide of frustration raced all through her body. Whirling around, some of her cherry hair falling against her cheeks, she saw that his face was sincerely apologetic, his mouth set in a thin line and his brows drawn together. He winced.

"Look," began Jace carefully. "I'm truly very sorry for my sins, alright. But it would still make my day if you gave me at least a tiny thank you." The not-quite sheepish grin that he boasted was the one thing that prevented the remaining kindness in Clary from dissipating.

"If you're so desperate for my gratitude, then please tell me why I should give it to you."

Sheepish-but-not-quite tore quickly into accomplished. "I'm not desperate per se, just deserving."

She barked a laugh. "Okay chief, whatever you say."

"If it's not obvious enough, I got us both out of there. _God,_ I could feel myself aging in there. And while the walls were crying because she was talking so much, she mentioned something about one of her editors not submitting her papers on time, and that she'd have a word with them…" He smirked a cunning smirk. "Someone with an IQ level of negative forty would be able to figure out that, that lucky editor was you." He noticed how her fingers tightened their grip on the papers in her hand.

"So," she drawled, lifting her brows, "your barely-functioning brain thinks it's okay to ask me if I'm 'alright' and to 'correct you if you've assumed wrongly'?" That phrase pissed her off so much. 'Correct me if I've assumed wrongly. _'_ Was this the fourth century? Who even spoke like that?

Crossing her arms, she threw him a look of disbelief. She remembered when her mother used to give her the same exact look when she was a kid whenever the stupid side of her would barge in.

"I mean, sweetheart, did you _see_ your face?" The smirk she was sure he'd been supressing, finally came out in full force. "I didn't think one person could be so disgusted at once."

"You're saying you're not used to people wearing that same face when they're around you?" She put a hand over her mouth, mock surprise pouring into her eyes.

"You tell me," Jace challenged, stepping towards her and shoving his hands in the pockets of his pants. The over-the-top lighting drowned his face in shadows, and Clary hated it. Hated that he looked so damn _good_ —it drove her insane. She clenched her fists in anger and disappointment. Why did he have to be such an ass? "Did your boss look like she wanted to kill someone while talking to me?"

She huffed, slightly relieved when he stopped a few feet away from her. "Dude, she wants to kill everybody. I'm sure you'll get to that stage in your . . . relationship with her one day. Like, you're already calling her _Maryse_ , who knows where this would go?"

A small chuckle rolled out of him, smugness sprayed all over him like perfume. "Wouldn't you like to know," he muttered, loud enough for her to barely hear it. "I could totally be having a steamy hot relationship with her. Right now."

"Could you now?" she said, almost as quietly him, because suddenly his keen gaze was latched onto her, and her body was humming and burning and she didn't know what else to do. "It's your own grave, not mine."

"Just swear you won't tell anyone," Jace requested in a hushed voice. Smiles had abducted both of their faces, and Clary's incessant anger receded a little. Her eyes trailed his finger is it came in front of his lips, and she bit her own without meaning to.

And through her ebbing laughter, she said, "No promises."

* * *

Drywall fell like snow from the ceiling as Clary slammed her apartment door shut, dropping her keys into the glass bowl sitting on the breakfast bar. She dropped her purse and jacket onto one of the barstools. Muted laughter from the living room cascaded through the house, brushing an inkling of a smile onto her face.

 _Camille was home._

Abandoning her heels, which were the devil's children anyway, she coyly waltzed into the living room, throwing on her cockiest smile. _Frasier_ was playing on the TV, and the moment Clary spotted a blonde head on the couch, she hollered, "Honey, I'm home!"

"Really?" Camille, her full-time best friend and roommate, responded. "Gosh _darn it._ I thought you were in Narnia, really."

"I hate just leaving my room, and you're over here thinking I'd be brave enough to go to Narnia? _For shame_." Clary padded over to her bedroom, her stress from work filing away quickly at the comfort the space gave her. Everything, from the infinite amount of throw pillows and lavish comforter, to her wall of polaroid pictures that costed too much—it all seemed to make her feel as weightless as a whisper.

"Oh my god," Camille's exasperated voice crawled into her room, and a laugh jumped out of Clary. "Do you take classes on how to be dramatic or are you just a natural at it?" Clary stopped in front of the mirror on her dresser, grabbing her comb to straighten out the jungle she called her hair. The first few seconds of combing unveiled assortments of tangles, as if a bomb of knots exploded in her head.

"I'm so natural, people would want to sell me at a farmer's market," Clary said ostentatiously.

"What the hell are you even saying?" yelled the blonde, thoughtless amusement sprayed all over her words.

"Do you really think I know?" Clary asked back, brushing her ends and throwing her hair into a bun.

"Well, you should."

The living room greeted Clary as she made her way to the couch where Camille was sitting. "I'll figure it out on a day my brain is present."

Camille's hand was pointing the remote of the TV, and the volume rocketed. Somewhere beneath the artificial laughter spurting from the show, Clary could hear her friend mutter, "You're never figuring out."

When Camille was younger, she and Clary would strut around their neighborhood, wearing black and red pumps they'd stolen from Clary's mom because they wanted to be adults at the age of eight. They would make paper purses sometimes, too, and would write their names on the purses with those metallic sharpies, which never really seemed ink in them. Camille always hated how Clary's handwriting was prettier than hers.

Purse or not, though, they'd walk to the little lake in front of their art teacher's apartment on the weekends and get mosquito bites trying to find a place to sit. And once they did find a bench or a rock, the sun would watch them talk until it slept, then the depthless night sky would scare them home.

And a dozen years later, they did the same thing. Except, the lake became too far for them, they weren't limited to the weekends, and the depthless night sky was only a negligible complication.

The same night sky was draped above the two as they waited in one of those prim and proper restaurants for the mountains of food they had ordered. Camille got her pay check a few days ago, and since the dent in the sofa from where she was sitting started to get depressing, she convinced the both of them that the best thing to do was eat out and splurge.

Though, Clary's hair was still trapped in the messy bun she'd put it in earlier, and instead of wearing a simple dress like Camille, she wore jeans and a sweatshirt.

"My attitude gives me class, so putting on something classy would just overwhelm everyone," Clary had claimed when Camille stared at her outfit with immeasurable disapproval.

And now, the redhead was ranting about something that happened at work, her eyes blown wide in anger and her lips curling disgustedly.

Camille was smiling all the way through, absolutely fascinated by the absurdity of what her friend was saying. Waiters passing by would occasionally slide worried glances at Clary, forcing Camille to glare at them back.

"Wait, so let me get this straight," Camille said calmly after Clary's words ran out. "Some guy embarrassed you, and told you to show him where the bathroom was, and you yelled at him. Are you—are you mentally okay in the head?"

"I swear to god, Camille, don't you dare make fun of me. The situation was dire." As if on command, the light from the candle in the center of the table dramatically flickered across her face.

"You overreacted."

" _You_ overreacted," Clary fired back childishly, hiding her face behind the sleeves of her hoodie.

"Clary." Camille's voice was flat, but her eyebrows were curved upwards.

"What?"

"Don't play _games_ with me, child." A frustrated laugh floated out of Camille.

"I'm older than you."

"But somehow you have the mentality of a baby?"

Huffing impatiently, Clary muttered, "You and this guy—I dislike you both _very much_ right now."

"Did he at least apologize?"

There was something about silence that irked Camille, so she had to twiddle her thumbs under the table to keep herself occupied as Clary's words seemed to gather slowly on her tongue. "I mean, well..." More silence. Camille's thumbs were going in hasty circles now. "I guess so."

The blonde's patience tipped over. " _Oh my god_ , you've been friends with me since you thought horses were _dinosaurs_ and not even a _shred_ of my common sense has rubbed off on you?"

"In my defence—" Reasons rushed up and down like tides in Clary's head, and she tried to form sentences that simply refused to come together. And finally, she gave up, because all of her deformed sentences sounded suspiciously like excuses. "Okay, fine. You win. I overreacted."

The accomplished smile that burst onto Camille's face went well with the black dress she was wearing. "Just go up to him tomorrow and apologize. Not a big deal."

"What would I even say?"

"That sounds like a personal problem, Clary." Camille glanced pointedly at her. "Figure it out."

"Sometimes, you're honestly zero help."

" _Sometimes,_ I know that you've got a brain." And just then, the tell-tale sound of a ringtone barged right into their conversation. Camille reached into her purse and took her phone out, the screen reading _Mom._ She gave Clary an apologetic look and said, "It's my mum; I'll be back in a few minutes. Don't die when I'm gone, okay?"

Clary was starting to get worried when their food made its grand entrance, and Camille still hadn't. A few minutes had dissolved into ten, then fifteen, and then the little seeds of worry in Clary erupted disastrously.

And this was how she found Camille in the marble-clad bathroom of the restaurant, dark branches of runny mascara extending across her cheeks. Camille, wiping furiously at her tear-stained face, had somehow found an attachment to the gleaming floors, refusing to get up no matter how hard Clary tried. The girl was in such a disgruntled state, that the few words that Clary managed to fish out of her brought with them an endless chain of tears.

After a few minutes of irrational sulking and crying, Clary couldn't handle it anymore. "Okay, I get that you're borderline dying right now, but you've got to tell me what's going on if you want me to be of any help," she stated firmly.

Usually behind Camille's eyes was some kind of emotion: infectious love, unwavering attitude, copious amounts of anger. Even on the drab days, when her preferred pass time was sulking, there would be a grain, if not more, of some type of feeling.

But now it was hauntingly empty, dark.

Clary could hear her heart shattering, the sound gruesome and resonant. "Camille," she whispered, joining her miserable position on the ground. "Whatever just happened, it can't be that bad, can it?"

"I guess." All the tears made Camille's voice come out all disoriented. "My mom's been lying to me, Clary. She lied to me."

Camille's mom, Celine, was one of the most down-to-earth and honest people Clary knew. She'd always been there for Clary when she was a kid, so naturally, her first instinct was to defend the woman. "Celine would never do that—"

"You don't know what my mom would do." Clary felt like a bullet of shock just kicked through her guts. Her friend's expression bled venom.

It took a few moments for Clary's mind to refocus, and calmly, she said, "Then explain it to me."

"I don't know what drugs mom's been taking, or what motivated her, but she's supposedly talking to my dad." No words were exchanged between the two for a while, just a look of anger on Clary's face and the lazy twiddling of Camille's thumbs. "He called her a long time ago using an unknown number or some shit, so my mom wouldn't know it was him calling." Her tone was made of stone, unmoving, unforgiving.

Meanwhile, churning disgust coated Clary's stomach like paint. "He's sick."

Camille's father was the shoe that shamelessly crumpled a flower beneath its sole, the voids of black that obscured all the color, the menacing smile beneath the tears. And after what Celine Montclair favored to call a "mutual decision", her and Camille's father filed for divorce. Though, each still carried reminders of the other. Celine took care of their daughter, Camille. And their son—Camille's brother, Jonathan, was swept away by their dad.

"That's what I believed my mom thought, too," admitted Camille. A scoff threw a bucket of distaste onto the stone of her face. "But I guess the stupid thing about believing is that it all ends up being in your head. Everything. And then when it's all gone, you feel so fucking dumb."

"Oh, Camille." The tears peeping out of Camille's eyes splintered Clary's trust in Celine further. She felt a gaping hole in her chest where so much faith in Celine used to fester, and now she could sense it all draining out onto the floor. "Has your mother apologized?"

"So many times; it got to the point where it seemed like her purpose on earth was the apologize." They shared small smiles. "Though, she was completely unapologetic about the fact that Jonathan was _moving in_ with her, because apparently dad wanted him to 'reconnect with his maternal side'. Since when has my dad given half a shit about this kind of stuff?"

"Maybe he's a different person now, Camille. Plus, it's not a bad thing that your brother's closer to you."

"It's not, it's really not. Apart from the fact that he used to give me hell when I would visit dad's house sometimes as a kid. And, my mom never even fucking told me! I haven't seen my brother in _years_ , Clary, years! Did she not trust me enough to even give me a hint? Did I do something wrong? Am I that big of a bitch that my own mother just stops telling me important things like the fact that she's been talking to my asshole dad for the past few months?"

"I'm sure your brother's changed in about a decade's time. If he _did_ remain the same, then you could probably buy him fucking hot wheels for his birthday and he'd be fascinated. Your brother isn't our issue right now."

"You're right."

"But you know what _is_ our issue?"

"You?"

"No. Shut up."

"Make me."

"Our lonely, expensive food outside could do the job."

* * *

 **A/N: I've always thought Camille was an interesting character, so why not make her a major part of this story?**

 **Idk when I'll update but I hope it's soon ;-;**


	3. Sometimes

**I've started doing chapter songs! This one's song issss _Sometimes_ by Goth Babe. It doesn't have much to do with the chapter, but I listened to it the most while writing so I hope you like iiiiiiitt (if you listen lol)**

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Several things were bursting into action around Clary all at once: the rain was sticking to everything—like a horrid infestation, it never left—the traffic was weirdly confused all the time, and her phone was ringing, but she didn't know where it was. She'd reach for her purse to check if it was there for the ninth time, and then the traffic would jump start.

To say the very least, she was frustrated.

The rest of the drive to work consisted of the monotonous din of the rain masking the constant city noise, and her persistently ringing phone.

Clary had figured it was Camille calling, because no one would _ever_ call another human being so many times in a row. Ignoring her phone got easier and easier to more times her ringtone repeated itself. She'd text Camille when she got into her office.

And she did.

It turned out, Camille couldn't find the leftovers in the fridge from the 'dinner' they'd had the night before. " _I'm at work and everybody's paying for my lack of lunch,"_ she had told Clary, and even if they were texting, Clary could still tell that Camille was beyond upset. Maybe she would stop by at Macy's and buy her friend a pacifier to carry with her to work tomorrow.

It was only until after her lunch break, when she was editing a few of the articles the writers had submitted to her, that something had started irritating her. And only when she got up to get a glass of water to clear her head, did the seriousness of her situation drill into her: the place that she called an office, looked like a storage room that hadn't been touched in about fifteen years.

Every drawer in her god forsaken desk was clogged with the most useless shit. And she bought a new mouse yesterday evening because her old one had bid its farewell, and simply just disappeared without telling her. There were piles of documents everywhere, as if one large piece of paper had shattered into fragments all over her desk, and nobody had bothered to sweep up the mess.

But today, Clary decided, she was bothered. She started with the surface of her desk, then the drawers, which took more time.

It smelled nice in there, though. Like magazine paper and bouquets, just as it should have. And there was also this still silence woven into the air, too. Sometimes, it was ruffled by a surge of city noise, or a person talking outside her door, or—like what was happening right now—her door letting out a smooth sigh as someone opened it.

Standing up slowly, a bunch of flyers and colored cardstock folded in her hand, Clary was surprised to see Jace in her office, dandelion eyes churning in deep agitation while they looked all around him. His fingers were twitching at his sides, as if they were hiding a secret.

He wasn't wearing a blazer or anything, and she could see the way the maroon fabric of his shirt was straining against his chest. In her mind, she was already undoing the buttons, one by one, her eyes never leaving his.

And she was slightly startled that the thought had even snuck into her head—what if he had a girlfriend? What if he was her long-lost relative?

"Did Ms. Trueblood send you?" She was trying to be professional, to hastily smother the surprise and annoyance she felt, with a small smile as she spoke.

"I'm starting to wish she didn't," he muttered, and she couldn't help it—her smile was pushed away by the small amount of offense she felt.

"I—I'm sorry?" she said, confused. The momentarily lust-filled side of her was immediately lit on fire, the ashes blown away to somewhere she'd never be able to go.

He seemed to recognize what he'd just said, his eyes widening a fraction. "I, uhm, didn't mean it like that." He sounded unsure and amused at the same time. Amused by himself or her confusion, she wasn't sure.

"Almost ten words come out of my mouth and you're already talking about how you want to leave. I didn't know that was the boost my self-esteem needed until now." Her smile was so, _so_ very sweet; in retrospect, she might have looked like one of those depressed-but-always-smiling clowns at kid's parties, with the " _I'm dead on the inside and living is an exhausting day-to-day chore and god cannot help me"_ vibe. She should just stop talking— take that scotch tape on her desk and put it on her lips. "How's _your_ day been?" She didn't have a plan B—the tape didn't work.

He probably thought she was retarded. _She_ would think she was retarded.

"Personally, your company calms me, Clary," he said, and the sarcasm in his voice was so abundant, she could have served it to people by the bucket. And then there was the smile he unraveled onto his mouth, too. She didn't even know where it came from, and already she never wanted it to leave. "Never once in my life, have I _ever_ felt personally attacked by you." Lies. They knew it. Fuck, she had to apologize to him today. "It's just—I can't tell if this is an office or a new type of natural disaster."

Oh.

Oh no.

Embarrassment molding into her very bones, Clary watched as Jace padded around her office, eyeing all the clutter with palpable distaste.

"I'm working on cleaning it, okay." Sprawled on Jace's face was the most disbelieving look she had ever encountered in her twenty-four years of torturous life. It was so infectious, that disbelief—even she started feeling it. "What did Ms. Trueblood send you here for, anyway?" she attempted to divert the topic. The tape on her desk was being very enticing.

Then, suddenly, Jace began cleaning, as if his life was going to drip through his fingers if he didn't. Clary was both scared and concerned for him at the same time.

"Something to do with a few of the photos that were sampled a while ago. She wanted your help looking over them." Clary knew what photos he was talking about—and although they were quite important, Jace seemed wholly unbothered by it. He was delighted, however, to be focused on the mess that plagued every inch around him. He was grouping papers and putting them on any surface he could find that wasn't on the floor, moving the trashcan by the door closer to where he was organizing. "There is absolutely no way I'm letting your office rot like this, though."

"And you're planning to sit here all day and clean it?" Astonishment was running through her veins more efficiently that her blood itself.

It was like he took the depressed-but-always-smiling clown expression out of her pockets and stuck it right onto his own face. "I'm pitying your office, if you can even call it that. I can't leave you like this. It's against my moral code."

A grin coiled around her lips, and her brows raised. "If you give me your moral code, I'll rewrite it and give it back."

" _What?"_ In flew that disbelief again, as though there was an endless supply of it hiding behind his face. " _No._ It doesn't work like that."

She plopped herself on her desk chair, her arms crossed, watching him head over to her filing cabinets and drop a bunch of papers in it. "Why not?" Her grin stretched out into a smile, sarcasm stretching along with it. "Did you eat your moral code?"

To not look entirely stupid and useless, Clary turned on her computer and paid attention to the articles she was going through earlier. Or at least, she was trying to; there was a Jace not very far from her, skimming through all her stuff and talking to her and not leaving, and it was just a smidge difficult to not feel his presence acutely.

"Even worse," he countered. His gaze was stained onto hers, entirely serious apart from the traitorous shards of amusement, which would appear uninvited every now and then. " _It was written in sharpie, it can never be changed._ "

Clary was ambushed by the laughter that soon was unstoppable. Her nails nearly poked her right in the eye as she dramatically wiped her unshed tears. If he wasn't chucking himself, she would have forced herself to stop making noise altogether, a _very_ long time ago.

"God damnit, Jace," a few straggling laughs fought their away out of her while she was speaking, and she had to promise herself she would eliminate even a bud of a giggle on sight, should it show up.

A look of innocence hovered over his face. "God would never damn me. We're good friends, you see."

The playful wonder of a four-year-old child spilled into her as she asked, "But does it go beyond friendship?"

He was thoughtful about it, then proclaimed, "I think god was flirting with me a few days ago, so I really wouldn't know what to say."

"Did you flirt back?" Her computer obstructed her view of him, so she shifted her body so she could catch his facial expressions.

"Maybe—is this important to you?" There was a section on the carpeted floor he pointed to, filled with the most random selection of things. Only then did the thought of helping Jace actually skitter into her head. She had been supposedly working while they were talking, even though her mind was laboring away at thinking of something decent to say back to him. Sometimes she would even click mindlessly, or type some random sentence into her search bar to make it seem like she wasn't wasting her time away.

Making the ultimate decision that helping him was better than confusing her computer, she padded across the room to where he was, sitting down on the floor with him. "I'll look through it." She gathered all the items and began arranging them into haphazard piles. She clicked back to their earlier conversation, saying, "And how could you do that to Mrs. Trueblood—I thought your guys' relationship was going strong?"

"We're on a break right now."

And just then, a cascade of events triggered around Clary: the swift whisper of her door opening, Jace's yelp as he got hit by it, and Isabelle's… _noise_ —Clary couldn't even place a name to it.

It was all too much for a Tuesday afternoon.

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 **A/N: I just wanted to dearly apologise for the long, long wait. I had exams for about two weeks, and then this bitch got lazy xD**

 **There was originally supposed to be another section to this chapter, but then my brain couldn't write the last half of it and I just wanted to upload _something_ , so that's mainly why this one's so short and kind of a filler. **

**I hope you all have lovely days, and thank you, from the very bottom of my near-dead heart, for all the support.**

 **-RWMS**


	4. The Glass Door Issue

**A/N: I listened to** _ **We Never Change**_ **by Coldplay, like a LOT, while writing, so that's the chapter song now ooooof.**

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Isabelle Lightwood could make a speck of dirt look like a drop of starlight, a dishcloth like chiffon silk, or, what she was best at, she could make gossip sound like international headlines that breathed importance. This was often why she had bundles of people surrounding her when she was out of the privacy of her office. Whether she was the daughter of Maryse Trueblood or not, she was a natural at advertising.

There were a few people she trusted, however, and it only ever mattered if _they_ stuck around her to hear her international headlines. And right now, a lot of those people were in meetings or working—which she should probably be doing—but she was excited and scared and she needed to get the news out to _someone_.

In sacrifice of her seemingly untouched and untouchable dignity, Isabelle acted upon the only idea that possessed her on a wild whim: she would, like a stalker born in some dark alley, peep into all of her friends' offices (which all happened to conveniently sport glass doors and windows), and check their schedules to figure out when they'd be free.

Perhaps to a passer-by, this was no cardinal sin, but to her, this was a smear of dirt on her seemingly clean reputation.

Isabelle departed from the isolation of her office, strutting along the corridors as if the walls were shaped to her command and the floors had been made for her. Her gaze slithered to her friends' offices as she passed them, quick like a serpent hunting prey.

 _Magnus: gone. Maia: she hadn't come to work in a week, what was the point? Maryse: she already knew, and she was acting too strange about it for Isabelle to ever bring it up again. But…_ Clary.

She'd gotten a call from her mother, maybe half an hour ago, asking if Clary was with her and if she was, she'd be in for it.

And so, Isabelle half walked, half ran, internally groaning from the small jolts of pain her high-heels brought her every time they made contact with the too-hard ground. Everything should have just been pillows—the floor, strewn in feather and cotton and comfort, and the walls like cloud, soft and fluffy.

Without another thought clipping through her head, she shouldered Clary's door open, nearly melting to the floor like a dropped rag at the sudden exclamation of pain shooting into her ears. She shrieked and laughed and gasped at the same time in response. A blindfolded person would have probably thought she was a delusional, troubled walrus.

"You're more genius than I expected you to be, Isabelle," a highly amused voice curled towards her, familiar and splotched with attitude as it always seemed to be. Isabelle blamed Camille, who constantly seemed to hold a cynical candle to everything, for influencing Clary so deeply. It suited her extraordinarily well, though.

And when Isabelle decided to get up from the ground, cracking her eyes open—when did they close, anyway?—the situation before her was the last thing she would have ever expected to happen. She probably would have died by tripping over a rock before she _ever_ thought Clary would clean.

Then there was the clearly suffering, and newly hired photo editor, too, whom her mother had been upraising for a solid ten minutes when the two had been talking a few days ago. Jace Herondale, his name was, short and formal and it made something inside her waver warningly like a boat tipping in water. The feeling became pressed more strongly into her as she observed him further.

 _Why was he sitting on the floor, helping Clary organize her shit while Ms. Trueblood was looking for her?_

"Not as genius as you guys, though," Isabelle stated. "Great going sitting on the floor when you've got a sofa and a chair. And you're in front of the door, too—your genius must be on steroids today." Rude, monotonous, completely unexcepted: that was how her voice was pouring out of her. Guilt poked through her, needles of it splitting her skin slowly, at the widening of Clary's eyes in surprise at that voice.

She hoped that, somehow, the guilt spreading through her body was apparent to her friend.

"The door's made of _glass_ ," the new photo editor said, and his tone was highly amused like how Clary's was, but still tremendously different from hers. He was rubbing at his head where the door assaulted him. "Sitting on the floor or not, we've all got eyes, right?"

 _The fucking nerve._ "But no sane person checks a door from _head-to-toe_ to check if a civilian is sitting at the very bottom, smartass. That just doesn't happen." His mouth parted to retort, to say something that you would say to an overly-righteous person because that's how she was acting and she wasn't proud, but she cut off his sentence before he even started it. "Anyway, Clary, I need to talk to you." She made sure to stitch a warm but expectant look on her face, and stepped out.

She treated the door like it wasn't made of glass, and didn't watch it to ensure Clary was coming.

"What did I just witness and _why_?" Clary questioned after the sound of the door shutting resonated.

"I wasn't expecting him in your office, and plus, this bitch got zero sleep last night," the lie slithered faultlessly through her perfect teeth. "God only knows what my brain does when it's half-functioning." She tossed over a slight smile to Clary.

Clary returned it, thank god, saying in a scolding tone, "How many million times have Camille and I told you to stop staying up until like three in the morning? Honestly, Isabelle, you're giving us anxiety. If you want, we can—"

Isabelle didn't know what came over her, what impulse suddenly draped over her, but she couldn't keep it in. "Clary I'm pregnant," the words spilled like paint. "And only Simon and my mom and Alec know." There was paint all over the floor, and the ceilings, and it looked like Clary was drowning in it. Maybe, just in the slightest, she said too much.

The redhead's shaking hands came over her agape mouth, and she squealed loud enough that the walls probably wanted to hide, but quite enough that no one else did. Then, she trapped Isabelle in the tightest hug known to man, Isabelle doing the same. It was making Isabelle's heart melt, love dripping into every little cell of her body.

Suddenly the hug went away, but the beautiful, _beautiful_ love stayed, and she was so close to crying. "I'm going to get so fat, Clary," she whispered, words shaky because of the tears so close to falling from them. "And I don't think I'll ever be able to close my eyes in peace, like ever."

"You've got me and Camille, moron. We'll close your eyes for you if we have to," Clary noted, so sure of every syllable she uttered.

Casting her gaze to Clary's was equivalent to someone taking a sledgehammer and shattering her will to stay composed. There was just _so much_ support, and compassion, and unyielding acceptance in her eyes, Isabelle couldn't push her tears back anymore.

"Noooo," Clary dragged the word out, a partial frown folding her face. "Everyone's crying this week and I feel left out." A short laugh fell from her mouth. "First Camille, and now you—I feel like some rock, honestly."

Clary's eyes were now dancing with humor, as well as all the other wonderful things, and that sledgehammer feeling dulled a whole lot.

So, Isabelle exclaimed, "What? Camille physically cried? What the _flying_ fuck—why?" She was obviously worried, because Camille cried as often as Clary cleaned.

Comprehending the summary that Clary gave her of Camille's situation, what with her dad and Celine's lies all drawn back into the picture, this cluster of anger, concern— _confusion_ , it all lashed out in her brain at once.

" _And_ , and—Jonathan, that fantasy brother that we've heard of twice in our lives? He's fucking back! In New York!" Clary announced. At that moment, the glass door swung open, a very bored Jace occupying the hallway. His facial expression wasn't even _there_ , like a blank, untouched canvas that was just taken out of the plastic wrap.

He glanced up from his phone to Clary— _blank—_ and Isabelle felt more transparent than that glass door was supposed to be. It annoyed her. "Listen, it's my lunch break right now, so if I run into Ms. Trueblood, I'll tell her you've got a concussion and that's why you couldn't make it," Jace explained.

It didn't matter who said it, but hearing her mom being called _Ms. Trueblood_ made her want to cringe and laugh at the same time.

Clary's face was a work of pure incredulity. "You can't—" she started, but was interrupted.

Jace started walking out of the department, though he was still facing them. The casual, unchallengeable air surrounding him annoyed Isabelle. "I'll make it believable."

Clary's incredulity turned to just a little bit of anger. _Just_ a bit. "And the mess inside is going to do what? Pray?"

"Well, I'm not going to sacrifice my lunch break, and I'm sure your friend can help you clean it up." _Friend._ Isabelle Lightwood had a name. She scoffed noticeably, glaring at him as if her the reason she was born was the give Jace Herondale the very essence of hell. "If you _really_ want my help, you could catch me after lunch." He smirked, pausing, and gave Clary a long look. "If I'm free."

"Moral code, my ass, dude," Clary said. "Don't mess up my shit if you're not going to clean it, yeah?"

He turned around, and his face was out of view, but Isabelle could see the sadistic delight written in his eyes and mouth and skin. "Wouldn't dream of it, darling."

Clary audibly exhaled, but the middle finger she gave him wasn't audible at all.

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 **A/N: Hellloooo my lovelies, how were your days?** **😂😩 I've never been in this good of a mood, god help me. We've got spring break rn, and I wrote all this in like two hours, so I apologise if it's high key kind of shitty.**

 **See y' all next timeee though lol**

 **-RWMS**


	5. Didn't Give Me Time to Say Goodbye

**A/N: This chapter's song is _Pigeon_ by Cavetown. I love it with all my heart and I hope you do too. **

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All of his insides were being eaten by thrashing flames. It was the epitome torture. Jace was about to explode from the inside outward. His head was pounding with the passion of a thousand hells, and his stomach contorted in the mournful way it did when it knew everything around you was lined with thorns.

He couldn't quite understand was he'd just seen or heard, tasted or touched—all his senses stood there, wide-eyed and in shock, the moment he saw his sister.

The sister whom he'd tried his absolute best to persistently annoy, whether it be pulling her hair or stealing the last strawberry on her plate. The sister whose tears were little knives, slashing into his heart so cruelly. The sister that loved him almost as much as he loved her.

The sister who was now nothing more than a stranger to him.

His tongue was spiked with this bitter sensation, dry behind his slightly parted lips, when he'd first glanced at the photo, folded and wrinkled. It drifted out of one of the folders he was about to put up in a cabinet, landing on his feet, feather-light like a barely-there kiss.

Camille was smiling, leaning against a grinning Clary, and beside her was a skinny, slightly offset boy with hair the color of mud. The last time Jace saw Camille smile, he'd slipped on grass and the little girl flooded the whole world with her laughter.

Woe, larger than the sky, bloomed so powerfully in Jace's chest, it could have just split right open— _he_ wanted to be in that photo, so happy and free. And it was stupid and childish to want something he'd never be able to have.

He knew, under all the woe and sorrow and remorse, that he'd never be what Camille and their mother deserved; they deserved the sun, the moon, all the stars twinkling so proud in the sky. And he . . . he was the menace that moved the clouds to cover the sun and the moon and every radiant, irreplaceable star.

A thought didn't dare cross his impenetrable mind as he pulled out his phone, taking a photo of the blissfully smiling Camille, the mud-haired boy, and Clary's wide grin. Perhaps it was a smidge creepy, but there were these talons of greed gouging the rationality out of him, and he just couldn't help it.

Scrubbing every morsel of sorrow off his face like it was some kind of disease, he lifted himself from the ground, stepping towards the door.

Upon opening it, the words, "And—Jonathan, that fantasy brother that we've heard of twice in our lives? He's fucking back! In New York!", just assaulted his ears. That whole statement slowly seeped into his head and turned him blanker than ever.

Underneath his skin was a cesspool of emotions, but he remained stoic. His ability to hide, hide even the tiniest spot of humanity festering in his body, kind of scared him. It definitely scared others.

Within the blink of an eye, Jace had managed to bury Camille under an innumerable amount of burdens. It was almost as if he hadn't ever known he had a sister at all.

-()-

Jace didn't think it was possible for a single thing on earth to be more boring than witnessing the great feat of Amy Schumer doing _anything_. Watching the woman talk made him want to uninstall his life, but then he'd rejuvenate himself because he'd forgotten to shoot the TV.

But, surprisingly enough, Jace had been proven wrong today: meetings were the tax people paid for being alive. The most dreadful, awful tax there could have ever been. Milking a fucking _cow_ was most entertaining than attending a meeting. Milking it with Amy Schumer? Even better.

They would have been doing god's work.

A girl named Amatis was drawing some sort of diagram, unusual shapes and unfinished sentences littering the whiteboard, and words were being shed from her mouth every once in a while, to elaborate on her abomination of a diagram. And the more those poor, unsuspecting words were being forced out, the more he wanted the whole building to fall and impact _only_ her.

Out of sheer desperation to appease this growing sense of deadly boredom, Jace decided to peel his gaze off his reflection in the spectacularly polished table and drag it around the falsely intimidating meeting room. The air smelled very strongly of Clorox wipes, and if he sniffed hard enough, he could practically see them floating in the air.

The _air_ made him feel unhygienic, even though such a thing was blasphemous.

Sitting to his right was one of the photo editors in his team: Maia Roberts. She was dressed in adventure, being one of the only people on the team that explored the riskier options. He wished he could've done such a thing when he was as young as her. Though, he'd never let that confession loose. As of now, however, her hands were tying and untying her hair discreetly, the bags under her eyes yelling for attention.

Next to her was the advertising executive. He'd heard her name decorate people's lips at least a few dozen times a day, and knew that she was Ms. Trueblood's spawn. The way her whole demeanor became progressively more scrutinizing against him was mildly unsettling to him, but he didn't care too much about it. To her credit, though, Isabelle seemed to be one of the only ones who had outrightly dared to close her eyes for prolonged periods of time.

Then, after Isabelle, was the fashion editor of the magazine. People around him, concluded Jace, automatically were flowing with the urge to be better than they already were. Magnus Bane was fearless, sure, but also powerful. Jace was inclined to believe the other man was immune to tricks, as if he'd seen every secret hidden behind every corner, every whisper under every breath.

Usually, flickers were what the meek did, because they happened before one second could finish, and that was all. Jace was not meek in any sense whatsoever.

When his eyes halted to the seat directly across from him, to the magazine's art director, his gaze forgot entirely what flicker even meant. It was subtle, his stare. It didn't bore into Clary, but it wasn't just brushing her, either.

He could feel that torturous fire licking his lungs again when he thought of the fact that Clary had talked to and cried and laughed with Camille. And he wanted to hate her, the fire was convincing him to, yet—hating someone Camille loved would distance him from her even more.

Then, her gaze clicked with his, and with the black kohl she had on, she was definitely more intimidating, and alluring, than he thought her to be. He raised an eyebrow at her, quickly finding the smirk that always seemed to lift his lips. Her eyes rolled seamlessly at him, a slight scoff crawling onto her face. His smirk stayed until she glimpsed back at the board.

Amatis's voice contaminated the meeting room for what felt like an age.

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 **A/N: honestly I'm so tired and I've got a whole bunch of things to do for school tomorrow, but this seemed more important lmao. I hope you're all having good days though! I probably won't be uploading for a good while because of the crappy education I need to be employed, and also because I really need to figure out where to go from here storywise. I have the plot and all written down, but I can't have the next "big thing" for this happen just yet. Bear with me y' all ;-;**

 **-RWMS**


	6. Middle of Somewhere

The earrings were a little heavy, and the dress was sold to her by the devil's children. But, they were always that way, and it wasn't like Clary looked unpleasant. She was wearing a black dress that had the deepest V-neck she had ever encountered in her twenty-six-year-old lifespan, and it clung to her skin for dear life. Her hair was constrained into some fancy ponytail she saw on Pinterest and decided to try out.

"Baby, are you a parking ticket? Because you've got _fine_ written _all over you_ ," Camille's voice sprouted from thin air, pulling knots of laughter out of Clary. The blonde silently shuffled over to Clary's bed, which was a collection of too-thick comforters and a few colonies of throw pillows, and plopped herself onto it none too graciously. Reminiscent of a distressed whale.

And Camille was calling _Clary_ fine.

"Hey shitlord, I'm already taken," Clary claimed proudly. "This ho is no longer single and ready to mingle."

Incredulity bubbled in her friend's face. "Oh? And who is this unfortunate civilian?"

Their gazes melded together, the intensity reaching an unhealthy level as each second tirelessly drifted by. "If you must know, god and I are in a pretty committed relationship." Clary crossed her arms defensively. "I have faith that it's going to work out this time."

"It would be too sinful to be near you while you're wearing that dress. It's not going to work out with god," Camille teased, winking. "Are you a library book, Clary? Because, I want to check you out."

Clary was mortified. Cold air stung her eyes as she propped them wide open. "You're disgusting," she deadpanned. "Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow." Her feet were carrying her out of the room, to the kitchen. She had about twenty minutes until Isabelle came and picked her up. She could get out a bag of chips in that time, for sure.

"I don't have a cow, dumbass!" yelled Camille from Clary's bedroom. "I have you."

"But I have chips, so I'm superior and you're not." Clary made sure her crunching was nastily loud. Expectedly, Camille slid out of the bedroom and stuck her hand in the bag of chips.

The packet was stripped of those glorious sour-cream-and-onion chips in five minutes flat, and nothing but the sound of chewing passed between them. When Clary was discarding the bag in the trash, she asked, "You're sure you don't want to come with me? If we hustle, we can get you ready in the fifteen-ish minutes we have left."

"Nah," Camille drawled. "I thought I'd go to Alec's place in a few hours, and go to work with him in the morning, too." Then, after the smallest of pauses, she added, with her devious smile, "If I run into Magnus in the morning, I might just stay a while to bond with him about what a pain in the ass you are."

Clary's eyes crinkled as a warm smile graced her face, her hand going to her chest in endearment. "You guys would talk about me for that long? I'm so lucky to have you—bring it in." She opened her arms, wide and welcoming, and waited for Camille to give her the fattest hug.

Camille did no such thing.

-()-

"It's so fucking dim in here. I bet you, Clary, mom's probably trying to hide something," commented Isabelle suspiciously at the drab atmosphere of the hall, and indeed, the lights gave a tired glow.

"They probably just want people to make mistakes easier," Clary added, stare dawdling all around, taking in the grand tables scattered generously, her co-workers dressed in the loveliest of clothes. Half of them acted as if they were being filmed, so polished. A lavishly decorated bar stood temptingly at the other end of vast room, and when she also spotted a cluster of her friends chatting animatedly with each other, tonight was beginning to turn a bit brighter.

"Oh shit—Clary _hide me_ ," the words scampered out of Isabelle in a hurry, and the girl was stationing herself behind Clary, bending so they were both essentially the same height. "Mayday, mayday; mom's in the crowd. I repeat, Maryse Trueblood has let herself loose into the crowd."

Awkwardly, the two of them shifted towards where Clary saw Maia, Magnus, and Raphael. "And your mother looking at you is the worst thing, why?"

It was a mistake that Clary laughed, because she could feel the skin of her back being assaulted by Isabelle's venomous glare. "I'll have to spend the rest of my time with her, talking to people I'd never known existed until now. This is _dire_."

"Your mom's hosting this party, Iz. You'll see her at some point. Why don't you go finish up with her now, so you don't have to hide the entire time?"

"Clary, I am _this_ close to beating your fuck."

"You're—you're going to _beat my fuck_?"

"I will beat your fuck."

Clary sighed, tucking a strand of her apple-red hair behind her ear and wondering why it wasn't in her ponytail. "This is ridiculous."

"No, Clary," Isabelle started, in a voice that was calm, like the soft flap of wings, " _you_ , are ridiculous."

The offended look on the redhead's face wiped away in a matter of seconds, replaced by a warm, pleading smile, as she stopped in front of the group of her friends. "Isabelle's hiding," she stated.

Magnus raised his eyebrows, eyes shining in the greatest amusement. But it was Maia who asked, "From what? Wait, no—let me guess. This atom of nitrogen flirted with her three years ago, but Isabelle rejected it, because it was still living in its mother's basement. But now it's back, looking for the long-lost love of its life and proposing marriage." She had an impressed, proud element in her features. And everyone was silent, clearly holding back laughter, because that was _the_ lamest shit ever.

"Dang, Maia, you're so fucking close, it's scary," Clary said, mock-regret slathered all over her tone. "She's hiding from Ms. Trueblood, though."

Raphael laughed, staring at Maia to look at her reaction and the others followed, but the noise was drowned under the chattering of everyone else in the hall. "Shut your traitor mouths, assholes," Isabelle hissed, yet there was a humorous edge it. " _She_ might hear us."

Magnus cast his gaze around, then dragged it back to Isabelle. "From across the room? Isabelle, sweetie, have you hit your head somewhere?"

The lot of them snickered, though lovingly, and Isabelle scowled. She was going to threaten to give all of them food poisoning, because apparently it was her superpower and she would own it, but then a voice, smooth and rough all at once, sliced right into their conversation, "so as it turns out, the bar's a hoax, and we're all so fucked."

"I think I'm going to have a heart attack," Raphael said, a frown melded into his face. He seemed a bit more at ease, however, after Jace stepped beside him. Clary knew Raphael just well enough that she could ask a favor of him and keep the guilt at bay.

"Have it elsewhere," Magnus suggested with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. "You might make a scene."

"Ever the considerate one," said Clary, slinging an arm over Isabelle's shoulder. A warmth clung to her skin, then, sinking and sinking until she was staring at myriad shades of lovely honey, and a pink flush flooded her.

In Jace's gaze lay curiosity, and beneath that flowed a slow current of sorrow. She looked away, noticed everyone laughing, and joined in. Jace did, too.

A web of conversation and laughter tangled around them, getting thicker as time raced. Somewhere in the middle, Mrs. Trueblood's glare cut through their web and straight to Isabelle, and with Isabelle stolen away, Clary felt odd with one of her arms just dangling now.

But that feeling vanished, since her phone started ringing, and now her arm had something to do. The caller ID read: _Celine_.

Wet marble floors, cold food, Camille's quivering sobs— _my mom's been lying to me, Clary. She lied to me._ There was an intense betrayal coating her blood, but she remembered the frivolous feeling going to Camille's house when she started middle school, Celine shielding them from all the harsh bullets of the world, and she picked up the phone.

A stretched sob from the phone jolted Clary out of her reality, into something much worse. Terror blotted the dim lights out, blotted the rationality in her out.

" _Celine_ —Celine, what _happened_?" she tried, but she felt so quiet, so helpless.

Clary head a loud inhale, Celine blurting distorted, cracked words, " _Camille_ , Clary. I was working, because I'm _always_ working and every day it's the same and _nothing happens_." She made a noise of the greatest pain, and the tears in Clary's eyes made everything so blurry. "And today, I get a phone call from the hospital telling me Camille— _my daughter_ , was about to die today because of some fucker texting on the highway. I didn't know I was her emergency contact; I always thought it would be you." Clary couldn't see and she couldn't speak and her body stopped. "She would want you here, Clary. When she wakes up."

"Text me the hospital's address," she said, and only because Celine's voice seemed to debilitate her, she hung up.

* * *

 **A/N: aaaah, it's so short but it was the best I could manage :/ I really fucking suck at updating, but my life has been so stupidly busy, I'm barely getting time to write :( Thank you for all the support nonetheless, it makes me all happy on the inside when everything around me gets pretty shit. I've got a competition in three days and I'm sick of preparing for it but wHaT cAn I dO ;-;** **I hate myself soo much bc I'm developing an anime craze aND I CAN'T GET OVER IT. I'm scaring myself tbh.**

 **Lana Del Rey released an album today, and Clary's birthday was a week ago, and I keep reading TMI and TDA over and over, so :))))**

 **I love you all, so much,  
-RWMS **


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